Maximize Student Engagement with Voice and Choice

The assignment: Figure out how a cell maintains an internal environment separate from its external environment by researching any function of the human body that interests you as a group. Tell your story as if you were standing on the cell membrane watching your function in action.

• You choose your groups and make a group contract. 
• You set your ​class and homework schedule over the next four weeks. 
• You maintain a communication platform that I can monitor.  ​
• You decide how you will communicate your learning of the requisite learning objectives and individual research question to the class.
• ​You decide how you should be assessed on your learning and presentation.
• YOU ARE IN CONTROL OF YOUR OWN LEARNING!  ​

Of course there is more to it, but you get the idea.  Here is the link to the project details.  ​The assignment was made only five hours ago, and this is why PBL is AWESOME! 

This group chose to use Trello to plan their project.  Notice that one of the three has already completed his assignment for the day.  There has been quite a bit of chatter on their facebook group as well. 

I just love watching students take control of their own learning!  This year, several of my students have decided to use Trello as a platform for organizing their project and communicating their progress.  The fact that there is a mobile app for Trello makes it even better.  Looking forward to getting feedback on this tool! 

I also love how organic the process is.  They set a task to learn information and then "book me" for mini lessons to help with their understanding.  Today I spent 5 minutes going over the basic structure of the cell membrane at their request.  Three of the four groups in one class joined in on the mini lesson and then I sent them off to explore the concepts further.  At the end of class, one group asked for a fifteen minute mini lesson on cell transport in the next class to help synthesize their self-assigned homework over learning about this topic.  Another plans to meet with me as well.  Thanks Facebook for the heads up! 

The engagement is fantastic, and the best part... I can't wait to learn with my kids! 

How do you actually lose weight?  What causes cocaine addiction?  How does Parkinson's disease affect the body?  What happens when you starve?  What causes depression?  ​What's the deal with lactose intolerance? Why are French fries so bad for you? How does an asthma inhaler work? ... and the list goes on.  Stay tuned for updates on our project. 

Collaboration For the Win! Bringing "Big Kid" Science to KG

Kindergarten students figuring out the microscope!

Guest co-writer:  Tiffany Hill @tifftado

The time has come to close the loop on the collaborative project between my 11th grade IB biology class and Tiffany Hill's kindergarten class.  Back in February, Tiffany and I discovered that my 11th grade biology students and her kindergarten students were studying similar topics.  My students were learning about cellular respiration in yeast and her students were planning on baking bread as a culminating activity for their unit on wheat (see video below).  Talk about coincidence!  We decided that it would be great if my students could create a video to teach her kids about how yeast contributed to the rising of bread through a couple of science demos, and then ask them for help on a science experiment that they could engage in while baking their bread.  Incidentally, this also tied in with their upcoming measurement and visualizing data units in KG. 

In a previous post, Going Back to Kindergarten, ​I talked about this project from our end in the "big school".  Today, Tiffany sent me her class's video response to our project.  I happened to get the e-mail right before my 11th grade biology class today, so without previewing it, I shared all of this five year old yummy goodness with my class.  They LOVED it...too much...in fact they all whined for about 10 minutes about how they want to go back to kindergarten.  To be completely honest, so do I, and not just because they get donuts for snack time!  The video below explains our project from KG's perspective.

​My favorite quotes: 

"​Dump it in there, BOYFRIEND" (I don't think that would fly with my 11th graders)

"Are we gonna draw it on the paper because that's what real scienstists do...(in case you didn't hear me) REAL SCIENSTISTS DO THAT!"  ​

Collaborating with Rory on this project was such an awesome learning experience for my students and myself.  It was excellent timing that our classes happened to be doing units with such easy connections. Thank goodness for WWW (Women, Wine, and Wednesdays...not necessarily in that order) for allowing us to make these connections!  Having the big kids ask KG students for help made them feel really special and it set a natural purpose for their inquiry.  This project was the perfect fit not only to our PYP Unit of Inquiry, "How we Organize Ourselves", but also to our math units of measurement and data collection.   When I reflect upon the way I taught this exact same sequence of explorations last year and compare it to this year I am over the moon at how this one day allowed for so much exposure and  knowledge growth. The integration of technology was a huge plus as well.  I am very excited to repeat this project next year and I look forward to inviting my colleagues to be on board!

- Tiffany Hill ​-

This project was so successful on both fronts that we are definitely planning to expand it to include both sections of biology and all of the KG next year.  Thanks to technology,  even if our units don't align in the future, my students can prepare the video in advance so that it will be ready for kindergarten when they need it!  Win - Win!  Tiffany, if you are reading this, next year, we expect to at least get some bread and maybe some chocolate donuts out of this for all of our hard work!   ​

One of these kids is not so interested in putting the bread in the cupboard to rise. Yummmmmm  donuts!

Crowdsourcing and the Boston Manhunt: Lessons for Educators

It is quite strange living on the other side of the world when tragic events like the Boston Marathon attacks occur back at home.  The first time I was in this situation was in 2001 on September 11th.  I was teaching a class in Caracas, Venezuela when our counselor showed up to let me know that she needed to remove a student from my class whose father might have been in the towers.  At the time I had no idea what she was talking about.  There was no Facebook, there was no Twitter.  The most current information we could access came from a news broadcast of CNN that was occasionally blocked by the Venezuelan government and replaced by one of Chavez's long-winded "chats".  Needless to say, CNN was not being broadcast in my classroom while I was teaching, so I was essentially in the dark. 

Fast forward 12 years to this past week.  Chavez is no more, and social media has completely changed the way people communicate with each other on a global scale.  Last night I attended the opening night of our school musical, "Oliver".  While waiting for it to start, I was reading the #bostonmanhunt Twitter updates on my iPhone via Flipboard.  When I read that they had caught up to the SUV and had a house surrounded, I mentioned this to my friend and a parent sitting in my row as they were also reading updates on their phones. My friend had been reading the New York Times and promptly realized that if he wanted instant updates he would have to switch to Twitter.  What ensued was a discussion of mixed messages gleaned from our separate Twitter feeds regarding the origins of the Tsarnaev's.  Did they ever live in Chechnya or were they from Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, or Turkey?  Wait... maybe they have always lived in the states.  Did they rob a 7-11 or not?  And on and on it went.  The conversation reminded me of an article I had read about the New York post that morning, and a similar misguided virtual manhunt on Reddit. 

NPR said it best in a tweet: ​

.@nprinskeep reminds us we are collecting dots, not connecting dots as this story unfolds. We really can't know the full story today.

— NPR News (@nprnews) April 19, 2013

This morning I read something that connected the dots to education for me resulting in this post.  ​In his blog, Adam Gopnik of the New Yorker wrote: 

The incomparable A. J. Liebling wrote once that there are three kinds of journalists: the reporter, who says what he’s seen; the interpretive reporter, who says what he thinks is the meaning of what he’s seen; and the expert, who says what he thinks is the meaning of what he hasn’t seen. The first two—reporters and interpretive reporters—have been largely undermined by economics and incuriosity. But the third category never stops growing. We are now a nation of experts, with millions of people who know the meaning of everything that they haven’t actually experienced. ​

In an earlier post of mine, ​Old Habits Don't Seem to Die, I broached this very same issue as it pertains to education.  You see the problem is that we are still educating our kids to become "experts" in our content areas rather than knowledgeable networkers or people capable of collecting, outsourcing and connecting dots. In this age of social media and crowdsourcing, why are we not shifting the paradigm to produce knowledgeable networkers instead of knowledgeable workers?  This morning I read a  disturbing post from an IT Director and AP outside of Chicago.  His tweet that accompanied this post said "Facebook vs. Education - Who wins?".  Though he makes some good points and offers some good strategies, his first piece of advice to educators is to block Facebook in schools.  This is not the answer. In my classroom this competition between Facebook and Education does not exist. The key is to make your class more engaging than Facebook for your students.  To do this, you need to become a facilitator of learning rather than a delivery service for content. Then educate your students on how to use social media safely for learning, design activities that utilize social media tools in your classroom, and transform social media platforms into tools for knowledgeable networking so that your students will be better prepared for their future.  If you want to explore this further, check out my post, Dropping the F-bomb in Class:  Why?.

If the crowdsourcing efforts of the Boston manhunt are any indication, it is clear that education will lose to social media if you make it a competition.  It is also apparent that many of the crowdsourcers involved in this effort mistakenly saw themselves more as journalistic experts than the first two types.  These individuals need to learn how to collect dots before connecting them.  They also need to learn that sometimes it is not their role to connect the dots.  It is our job as educators to teach them these skills.  It is time for us  to switch our focus from producing experts to producing more knowledgeable networkers. We must  join forces, educate ourselves on the powers of social media both good and bad and then teach our children ​to use the tools responsibly and effectively. 

My thoughts are with the people in Boston right now as they begin their healing process.  ​Over the next few days my feed will be flooded with stories of those who were personally impacted by this tragedy along with posts attempting to understand the motivation of these two men.  We will read these together as a nation, no a world, attempting to connect the dots that may not be ours to connect. 

Why Tweet? A How-to Guide from a Self-Proclaimed Tweep

This past weekend, my school held a 1:1 Learning Institute for our new staff cohort for the year 2013-2014.  The purpose was to help prepare them for 21st Century Teaching and Learning in a 1:1 laptop (BYOD) environment.  My contribution to the institute was a presentation on Do-It-Yourself Professional Development with Twitter.  Imagine cramming all of the yummy goodness of Twitter PD into 25 minutes... Not possible.  I could literally run an entire institute on the benefits of Twitter for PD and it would still feel inadequate. Instead, I shared this how-to doc including links to numerous blog posts and great resources that I have found via...wait for it... Twitter, of course.  For me, Twitter is like the gateway drug to PD euphoria.  It opens up so many possibilities that you didn't even know existed.  Who doesn't want that?  

The way I see it, people tend to fall into three groups where Twitter is concerned. 

​Where do you see yourself?  I would imagine that most people fall into groups 1 or 2. If you see yourself in group 3, my question to you is what are you doing to help your colleagues engage in this form of professional development?  I know it is cliche, but a chain is only as strong a its weakest link.  Time to spread the word and strengthen the chain!  Besides, there is always more that we can learn as educators.  This doc has something for everyone thanks to my virtual PLN.  I encourage you to take a look and dig a little deeper into the powers of the Twittersphere! 

If you are a member of group 1, my advice is to take a look at the Twitter for Educators: A Beginners Guide.  This is a great place to start.  For those of you who are in group 2, you should start to read up on hashtags and Twitter chats.  Mastery of these will definitely bring you to the next level.  For those of you in group 3, expand your PLN, and bring those who work closest to you into the fold so that you can up your game as a department, a school, or a district.  There are links with tips and tricks for everyone on this doc.  ​So take a few minutes to check them out!

Last night I participated in a live chat about #ntchat (new teacher chat) lead by Lisa Dabbs and her team of moderators on Classroom 2.0 live.  The archive to the chat can be found here.  Lisa is the founder and moderator of #ntchat, and I have to give a shout out to her for a job well done.  I grabbed some screenshots of her presentation (so credit to Lisa). 

In her presentation she asks why should we connect? Her response was to build a PLN (Passionate Learning Network according to Lisa... LOVE IT) to provide you with the support and collaboration necessary to help you grow as an educator.  If you are not convinced after reading some of the resources on the doc, you should join one of the Twitter chats to see what they have to offer.  My favorites are #sbgchat, #satchat, #satchatwc, #rechat, #edchat, and #ntchat (regardless of whether you are a new teacher or not).  At the end of her presentation, Lisa left us with this quote, "Replace fear of the unknown with curiosity."  Time to get curious! 

I hope to see some of you there!  Look for @roryaileen.